The Day I Learned Constitutional Rights Only Matter If We Defend Them

By: Adam Gilliam, CLDC client

There are moments in life that divide everything into “before” and “after.” March 25, 2023, became one of those days for me.

That morning, I drove to Coburg, Oregon, expecting to have an uncomfortable conversation with a man who owed my girlfriend money for construction work he had been paid to complete but never finished. I assumed it would be an ordinary dispute—frustrating, perhaps, but nothing more. Instead, within minutes, I found myself staring down the barrel of a police rifle.

Throughout everything that followed—being ordered to my knees, searched, handcuffed, and placed in the back of a patrol car—my thoughts kept returning to one thing: I just wanted to get home to my son. That was my focus during the entire ordeal.

I cooperated from the very beginning. I followed every command without hesitation, answered every question, and allowed officers to search both me and my vehicle. They found no weapon because there was not one. Even the responding officer later described me as “completely cooperative.”

As the investigation continued, more information confirmed what I had been saying all along. A neighbor told officers I had not threatened anyone, and the allegation that I had chased someone with a weapon no longer matched the facts. Yet despite everything the officers had learned, I remained in the back of a locked police car, with my hands painfully cuffed behind my back. I kept waiting for someone to recognize that the justification for detaining me had disappeared.

The physical discomfort was real and extreme. I’m a larger person, and earlier that day I had undergone dialysis treatment — I explained to the officers that being cuffed behind my back was causing me pain. But what stayed with me was not just the pain. It was the feeling of complete helplessness. I was not resisting. I was not trying to leave. I was not arguing with anyone. I simply could not understand why I was still sitting in the back of a patrol car after the evidence had shown I posed no threat.

Eventually, I heard something I will never forget. After more than an hour of detaining me, the officer turned to his supervisor and admitted, “I don’t know that I have probable cause for shit.” His supervisor responded, “I don’t think you do either.” A few minutes later, I was finally released – about an hour after I was first handcuffed.

For many people, that might have been the end of the experience. For me, it was only the beginning.

The days and weeks afterward were far more difficult than I expected. The encounter activated my PTSD, and I began waking up in cold sweats. Even now, the experience has stayed with me in ways I never anticipated. Some encounters with law enforcement end when you are released. Others follow you home.

It also changed the way I think about policing and about my own place in society. Before that day, I believed that if you remained calm, cooperated with officers, and told the truth, the system would ultimately work as it should. I still believe that most officers want to do the right thing, but I also understand now how quickly assumptions can shape an encounter—and how difficult it is to rebuild trust once it has been lost. As a Black man, the experience became what I can only describe as “a wake-up call that I’m still Black in America.”

That realization is not about assigning blame to every police officer. It is about recognizing that race continues to influence how many people experience interactions with law enforcement. My hope is that officers receive the training and support they need to slow down, avoid snap judgments, and recognize how implicit bias can affect decision-making. Public safety and constitutional rights are not competing values. They depend on one another.

That is why I chose to file this lawsuit.

I do not question that officers should investigate reports of possible violence. They have a responsibility to protect the public. But they also have a responsibility to reassess their actions as new information comes to light. When the facts no longer support taking away someone’s freedom, the Constitution requires that person’s liberty be restored.

Recently, a federal court ruled that the lawsuit CLDC filed for me could go forward to trial, with a jury deciding whether my prolonged detention violated the Fourth Amendment. The court did not determine that my rights were violated, but it didn’t throw out the case. What the judge recognized is that there are important constitutional questions that deserve to be heard and decided by a jury.

That ruling finally led the City of Coburg to make a reasonable settlement offer, and we were able to resolve the case without me going through the new trauma of a lengthy trial.

I cannot change what happened that day. It’s on my back, and I’m going to carry it. But I can tell my story. If doing so encourages law enforcement to pause before making assumptions, prompts departments to invest in meaningful training, or reminds even one person why constitutional rights matter, then sharing this experience will have served a purpose beyond my own case.